"Slide!" shrieked the coachers.
Larkins obeyed, and there might have been some dispute over the umpire's decision had not the ball slipped out of Roger's fingers just as he poked it onto the prostrate fellow.
"Safe!" announced the umpire, with a downward motion of his outspread hand.
The coachers capered wildly, while Copley, leaping forward, met Larkins, who had risen, and ostentatiously assisted in brushing some of the dirt from his clothes. The Barville crowd behaved like a bunch from a lunatic asylum. Roy Hooker told himself that Grant must surely go to pieces now. "If Eliot had given me a show," he whispered to himself, "I might go in there now and stop the slaughter."
Apparently the Texan was confused, seeing which, Cline attempted to purloin the sack behind his back, only to be caught easily when Rod turned and snapped the ball to Nelson.
This cheered the sympathizers with the home team, who were heartened still more as, a few moments later, the amazingly calm Texan took the crooked-nosed Roberts in hand and struck him out.
"Now, let's play ball and hold this lead, fellows," shouted Copley. "It's easy enough. We've got the game nailed."
Sanger had no trouble in fanning Piper, and again Oakdale's hope ebbed, as Nelson, who had not made a safety for the day, was sent by the whiff route to join Sleuth on the mourners' bench.
With two gone, Berlin Barker got his first hit. There rose a groan, however, when it was seen that roly-poly Chub Tuttle was the next sticker. Tuttle justified the hopeless ones by popping a dinky little fly into Sanger's hands.
"It's all off! It's all over!" crowed Copley, tossing the catching mask spinning aside. "You've only got to get three more, cap. The way you're pitching, it'll be like picking ripe fruit."